When the Music's Over (17 page)

And what did we look like? Typical sixties teenagers. In those days, I wore my blond hair down to my shoulders like Marianne Faithfull, with a parting in the middle and a fringe at the front, but I should imagine we were dressed conservatively and sensibly, and my mother certainly wouldn't let me wear one of the miniskirts that were fast becoming all the rage. I remember the arguments. “You'd look no better than a common trollop, young lady.” I was never sure which was meant to be the worst, a “trollop” or “common.” We might have been wearing jeans some of the time, but most likely we were wearing the same sort of thing we wore at home, bright summer dresses, skirts halfway down our calves, cool cotton blouses, that sort of thing. But we looked nice. I'm sure we looked nice. And innocent. At least nobody could say I was asking for it because of the way I dressed.

And so, after the usual chaos of packing and making sure everything was turned off, unplugged and locked up, we met Melanie and her parents at the bus stop and set off for the station.

AT THE
meeting that Friday evening in the boardroom, the whiteboard was covered with photos of the Bradham Lane body taken from all angles, as well as the artist's impression of the girl's face and close-ups of her tattoos and birthmark. Alongside were pictures of the crime scene and a timeline, carefully drawn up by Gerry on the computer.

Annie had brought Banks up to speed just before they started the meeting, and he took his seat with the others, including Gerry, Doug
Wilson, Stefan Nowak, Vic Manson, Jazz Singh and assorted CSIs. Winsome had gone home, as this wasn't her case, and she had plenty of homework to do on Danny Caxton. That beady-eyed bloke from the press office, Adrian Moss, who had visited her in the morning with AC Gervaise, was also present. He had been prowling the corridors a lot lately, as if he were up to something. He reminded Annie of a snake-oil salesman, not that she had ever met such a creature.

Annie surveyed the expectant faces, knowing how hard they had all worked since the body had been found on Wednesday morning. Now it was almost the weekend, and most of them would have a couple of days' rest and some time to spend with their families, a brief respite from the world of violent death. Not Annie, and probably not Banks, either, she thought. This was the kind of case that put its hooks into you. She didn't know how Banks felt about his high-profile investigation yet, but she knew him well enough to hazard a guess that he wasn't too thrilled. That was being kept as much under wraps as hers for the moment. There were no meetings and little squad-room gossip, though Danny Caxton was making a splash in the media.

Gerry began by describing the CCTV searches for possible cars and vans. “We've made a start,” she said. “DC Wilson is coordinating the team watching the CCTV and ANPR feeds. But it'll be slow going. There's a lot of it. We're also checking Bradham village itself and all the farms and villages in the immediate area, as well as having a close look at events in Eastvale that night.”

“Quite a job, then?”

“Yes, ma'am. There wasn't a lot of traffic at that time of night, of course, but there was more than you might expect, especially over a two- or three-hour period. Seems that the route our vans took cuts a big corner off if you want to get to Harrogate and West Yorkshire, especially if you want to avoid the A1 with all the lorries and roadworks. It's a bit slower, of course, but some drivers aren't in that much of a hurry. The main problem isn't the volume of traffic, though. It just takes time to narrow things down, find the drivers, check their stories. We have to follow up on every car and van. And the quality of the images isn't always as good as one would hope. According to Mandy Ketteridge's statement, we believe the murder took place between
two-fifteen and two-thirty in the morning, so we're starting by working on a time spread between one and three a.m. Naturally, we'll extend that if we get more information.”

“Anything stand out yet?” Banks asked.

“There's a couple of builders' vans,” Gerry said. “One white, the other dark blue, or black. We think the girl was taken and raped in a van of some sort before she was dumped by the roadside. At least she was dumped from it, even if she was raped elsewhere. The problem is, the number plate on the white van is impossible to read.”

“No name on the side, or logo?”

“No, sir. Not on either.”

“OK. Keep at it,” Banks said.

“And Gerry,” Annie added. “As we think the second van might have turned back—”

“We'll be checking for that, too, though there are a few out-of-the-way routes over the moors that can get you back to Eastvale by a different, and CCTV-free, route.”

“Bugger,” said Annie. “But if he did take a different route, away from the cameras, it seems to indicate some degree of premeditation, or at least self-preservation after the fact.”

“Lots of people know they're on candid camera everywhere they go these days,” said Banks. “If he'd just killed someone, he'd probably be extra cautious, so that's a good call.”

“I would have thought he'd also be panicking,” said Annie. “Unless it was something he was used to. I don't know about you, Gerry, but I think if I'd just gone too far and killed someone, I'd be crazy with fear. I wouldn't be thinking clearly.”

“Perhaps,” said Gerry. “But we've no way of knowing. I suppose it affects different people differently. It doesn't mean he was a cold-blooded killer, just that he maybe felt a sense of calm and clarity after he'd done it. Relief, maybe.”

“Sexual?”

“That's possible, too. Lord knows there are enough men who get off on violence against women.”

Annie summed up what little else they knew so far and invited Stefan and Jazz to provide an update. Stefan spoke about cars and tires,
using the photos on the whiteboard as a guide, and explained how there just wasn't enough information from the skid marks to run against a database search for make and model. He also explained how the traces of blood and the girl's muddy footprints led him to his theories about the sequence of events, though there were, unfortunately, no recoverable footprints from the killer, only signs of a scuffle by the roadside. They were working on identifying footwear marks made on the girl's body, he said, but he stressed that they were partial and would be unlikely to lead to the actual footwear the killer had been wearing, should he still be foolish enough to have it in his possession. There were, however, one or two scuff marks and scratches unique to that footwear. The one thing he was reasonably certain of was that there had been no one with her on her ten- or fifteen-minute walk from where she had been dumped to where she had been killed, so it seemed that whoever had kicked her out of the van while “My Silver Lining” was playing had gone on his way. It also appeared as if there had been only one killer.

“Maybe they were working in concert,” Annie suggested.

“What do you mean?” Banks asked.

“Maybe it was prearranged. Someone knew she was going to be tossed out of the van, and whoever it was in the other van was following for the specific purpose of killing her.”

“I suppose it's possible,” Banks admitted. “But it's a bit elaborate, don't you think? Why go to all that trouble when the people in the van could just as easily have killed her before they dumped her?”

“Maybe they weren't supposed to know she was going to be killed? It's not any more unbelievable than some psycho just happening to pass by.”

“True enough,” said Banks.

Then Jazz Singh took over.

“I've been working with the DNA for a while now,” she began, “and even though we've got no hits on the database, I'm sorry to say, I've come to a few conclusions. As you know, we found samples of semen from three males in the girl's orifices. The men clearly didn't use condoms, unless all three broke, so we can assume they're confident or stupid. Or both. Either way, it's to our advantage.”

“They most likely don't expect anyone to be searching for them,” said Banks. “Especially if, as Annie suggests, they didn't kill the girl. Either she was willing, or they raped her and gave her graphic warnings of what would happen to her if she talked.”

“Agreed,” said Annie. “And I'd lean towards the latter, given the amount of trauma they inflicted on her. Which leads me to believe they had confidence of some control over her even when she was out of their immediate presence.”

“Right,” said Jazz. “She knew them. Maybe they knew where she lived. Again, to our advantage. Now, in addition to having good-enough samples to match with any suspects we might find, there are one or two things I can tell you about the three men already, using an ethnic inference test. It's not infallible, and it can only be used as an estimation. It won't stand up in court. In fact, I don't think the information should leave this room. However, it might help you with your investigation. A comparison of Y-DNA markers to those in a database indicate the three men were all of Asian heritage, from the Indian subcontinent, most likely Pakistan. I can study other databases and haplogroups, but I'm not sure that will help you any further at this point.”

“Pakistan?” said Adrian Moss in disbelief.

“Of Pakistani descent. Yes, but they may never have actually
been
there. They could be as English as you and me. I'm simply talking about ethnic origins.”

“But living here?” Moss asked.

“The DNA doesn't tell us where they're living, but I suppose we can assume that they are here, as their semen was found in the victim at the crime scene. I doubt they sent it via airmail. I've started a familial search, but that's yielded nothing so far. No criminal brothers, mothers or fathers. I can dig further and uncover genetic disorders or high risk of developing certain medical conditions in the future, if you want, but it becomes expensive and time-consuming, and I don't see what good it does us.”

Adrian Moss looked at Jazz. “Are you sure about the ethnic origin?”

“Yes. Why? Doesn't it help?”

“It's a fucking media nightmare, is what it is,” he said. “Excuse my language.”

“I'm not too sure about that,” said Annie. “I think it's a terrific lead, Jazz. Well done. For a start, it points us in a specific direction. We could be dealing with a grooming situation gone wrong, for example. Wasn't it the case in Rotherham, Rochdale, Aylesbury and all the other places that those involved in grooming were men of Pakistani heritage exploiting white girls?”

“Yes,” said Banks. “But I still think we ought to keep an open mind. Don't jump to conclusions. It wasn't necessarily a grooming gang did this. They could have been friends of hers, for example, or people pretending to be friends. Or students. Kids today hang around with all kinds of ethnic groups. They're not racist, most of them, except your BNP types. And Pakistanis aren't genetically predisposed to grooming young girls for sex. After all, it's not something we haven't been doing for years already—and by ‘we' I mean ethnic Brits and other Europeans. It's not a specifically race-related issue.”

“It becomes one when most people caught at it these days are of Pakistani origin,” Annie argued. “And they weren't caught before because everyone—including us—turned a blind eye because we were scared of upsetting the Muslim community. And nobody believed the victims. Remember that buried report from West Midlands in the news not long ago?”

“Can't you all hear what you're saying?” Adrian Moss cut in. “This is dynamite. Any one of those words or theories. As soon as the media get anywhere near this, they're . . . we're . . . we're . . . I mean, for Christ's sake: Rotherham, Rochester, Pakistanis, grooming. It's a public relations nightmare waiting to happen. We'll be accused of racism. Worse, of
Islamophobia
.”

“You're here to prevent that, aren't you?” said Annie, smiling sweetly at him. “And take heart, Adrian, we're hardly dealing with devout Muslims, are we? Think about it. Alcohol, ketamine and possible gang rape were involved, and the last I heard they're a big no-no as far as Islam is concerned. Whoever gang-raped the girl or beat her to death don't believe in any deity I'd care to know about. They rape underage girls, sell them for sex.”

Moss groaned and put his head in his hands. Annie wasn't sure whether it was “gang rape” or “sell them for sex” that caused such a
reaction. “Whatever you do,” he pleaded, “just don't mention grooming to the media. At least not yet, not until you have absolute proof and I've had a chance to smooth the way. Even then, please clear it with me first.”

“Don't worry, Adrian,” said Banks. “We'll be keeping as much as we can back. We'll keep both you and the CPS in the loop. We don't even know the victim's identity yet. And there's something else we should keep in mind.”

“What?” asked Annie.

“They may have groomed her and even raped her, but they didn't kill her.”

“We can't be certain about that,” Annie said.

“Possibly not. But from what you've told me, and Jazz's analysis bears this out, all we really know is that the victim had rough sex with three men of Pakistani descent, and it seems they tossed her naked out of a moving van in the middle of nowhere. The murder took place
after
that. Beyond that, it's all speculation.”

“I'm sorry,” said Jazz. “But we got nothing from the murder scene, nothing from the killer except scuffs in the grass and the shoe or boot impressions Stefan's working on.”

“But they still threw her out of a moving vehicle,” Annie insisted. “That's attempted murder, for a start. And I happen to think our speculations are very reasonable given the circumstances.”

“Maybe they did it for a laugh,” Banks argued. “Kids can be irresponsible. And cruel. And that wasn't what killed her. Or the sex. She walked for about ten minutes back along the road before someone stopped and did the killing.”