Page 4 of Making a Killing (DI Fawley #7)
An hour in and Bradley and Holloway have very little to show for themselves. Of the dozen or so houses in the immediate area, they’ve only found occupants in three so far: two where the door was opened by members of staff with minimal English who said the owners were away and refused to be drawn on anything else, and one stay-at-home hipster dad in a singlet and shorts who said he ran a ‘cryptocurrency investment fund’. Bradley had to pretend to sneeze to cover her guffaw.
But they won’t be laughing if they go back to base empty-handed; Bradley can already hear Tate’s voice in her head, slathering on the sarcasm like it’s the Great British Shade-Off. But there’s still one more house left to try on this lane, a colour-supplement dream in creamy stone and ancient wisteria. Holloway parks the car on a circular gravel drive with a large bluish metal hare posed in mid-leap in the centre.
‘This’ll be another complete bloody waste of time,’ he grumbles as they walk up to the door. ‘You can’t even see the bloody road from here, never minds the woods.’
‘Well, you never know,’ says Bradley brightly. ‘Maybe they were out walking the labrador and came upon a scene of unimaginable horror.’
Holloway gives her a sidelong glance. ‘You don’t even know they have a dog –’
But he’s drowned out by the sound of barking. From the side of the house a large yellow lab comes hurtling towards them, slithering to their feet in a machine-gun splatter of dust and gravel.
Bradley turns to Holloway. ‘First rule of rural policing, the Up From Londons always have a labrador.’ She gestures towards the house: the door has opened and there’s a woman on the step, wiping her hands on a tea towel. Thirties, expertly cut hair, expensive jeans, a T-shirt so white it’s clearly never been through a hot wash. ‘Looks like the canine alarm has done the trick.’
It’s hard to exude gravitas with a happy labrador slobbering on your thigh, but Bradley does her best.
‘DS Bradley, DC Holloway, South Mercia Police; I believe you are Mrs Philippa Waverley? Could we come in for a moment?’
The woman looks from one to the other. ‘Is this about all that hoo-hah in the woods? I’m afraid I can’t tell you anything about that. I don’t know anything.’
Bradley leaves a beat, then, ‘All the same, it would greatly assist.’
She has a stock of phrases like this; not quite standard police lingo, not quite everyday vernacular either. Just a little bit off-centre, and designed to very slightly wrong-foot whichever unsuspecting member of the general public she happens to be addressing.
The woman looks undecided. ‘I have yoga in an hour –’
Bradley beams at her. ‘How lovely. This won’t take long.’
***
Text message from CSI Barbie Markey to DS Triona Bradley
Quick heads-up. Your vic is definitely NOT Ellie Harben. Other news is that we found an earring in the soil covering the body (pic attached). Not the vic’s as she doesn’t have pierced ears, and it’s possible it’s nothing to do with the body at all but we’ve swabbed it for DNA just in case. The downside is that it’s just a simple silver stud so probably not distinctive enough to be recognisable. I also spoke to that botanist mate of mine and he says that based on the growth rate of that type of nettle and the weather pattern recently we’re probably looking at between five and six weeks since the ground was disturbed. So something like 10-17 June. Hope that helps.
***
‘So you don’t remember seeing anything unusual recently, Mrs Waverley? Something or someone on the lane you thought was odd?’
Triona Bradley is doing her best to radiate calm, but the woman is fidgeting about the kitchen like a skittish colt. Picking things up, putting them down, running the tap for no apparent reason. Merely watching her is exhausting.
Bradley puts down her cup (Villeroy #classy). ‘Mrs Waverley?’
The woman turns to face them. ‘The sitting room is at the back of the house,’ she says, as if this is some sort of new-fangled arrangement they’ll never have encountered before. ‘Overlooking the pool. And we keep ourselves to ourselves.’
‘No break-ins to your garden outbuildings in the recent past?’
She frowns. ‘No, of course not – we’d have reported it.’
‘What about the dog?’
The frown deepens. ‘What about the dog?’
Bradley smiles. ‘Well, I’m sure he needs a lot of walking and those woods must be ideal. Maybe you noticed something that you didn’t realize was significant at the time? Maybe he did –?’
‘I don’t go in the woods.’ Her tone is surprisingly categorical.
Bradley smiles again. ‘Really? I find that very surprising.’
The woman prickles a little. ‘It creeps me out, if you really want to know, that whole place. It’s bad enough it’s on all those websites, but at least there’s no plaque or anything or we’d be overrun with ghouls.’
Bradley is baffled. ‘I’m sorry, I’m not with you. Ghouls? ’
The woman looks at her. ‘Are you not from round here?’
‘We’re based at Gloucester HQ, as we said. I live in Finstock. So I guess that’s a no.’
‘So you don’t know?’
‘Don’t know what?’
‘About the Crone Oak.’
‘The Crone Oak? I’ve never heard of it.’
‘ Really? I find that very surprising .’
The woman gives Bradley an arch look; evidently she feels the balance of power has shifted.
Bradley smiles. ‘Well, perhaps you could relieve our deplorable ignorance. If you would be so good.’
The woman purses her lips. ‘It was years ago, the fifties sometime, a couple of kids found a skeleton. They were climbing trees and chose the wrong one.’
Bradley frowns. ‘You mean it was inside the tree?’
She nods. ‘In a hole in that creepy old thing – the one that looks like an Ent.’
Bradley, for one, wasn’t expecting a Tolkien reference, but she knows which tree Waverley means, and she’s right, it does look eerily animate, as if it might start moving at any moment.
‘They said afterwards the bones must have been in there for hundreds of years – the branches had grown right through the ribcage. The boys were totally freaked out.’
‘I can well imagine,’ says Bradley drily.
‘You know, I think I’ve heard about that,’ says Holloway suddenly, surprising them both. ‘Just didn’t realize it was here. They thought she was some sort of witch, right? Shoved her down the tree and tied her up so she starved to death?’
The woman turns to look at him. ‘Exactly. They put her in a brank’s bridle.’
***
***
Back in the car fifteen minutes later, Holloway turns to Bradley. ‘You knew about that brank’s thing, didn’t you? I could tell, as soon as she mentioned it, you knew what it was.’
Bradley gives a wry smile. ‘There was a novel, years ago now, called The Scold’s Bridle. Quite a hit at the time. Old lady found dead in a bath with one of those contraptions on her head, full of thistles and weeds, as befitting the spiteful old harridan she had apparently been. An arresting image, one might say.’
Holloway yanks across his seat belt. ‘I get enough sodding crime without reading made-up versions in my spare time.’
Bradley is looking at her phone. ‘All the same, it can come in useful. On occasion.’ She glances up. ‘Looks like the woman in the tree wasn’t the only one. It says here they used to try witches in that lake – they’d tie them up and throw them off that cliff near the tree.’
‘What was the bloody point in that?’
‘The theory was that if you floated it proved you were a witch, but if you sank you were exonerated, which wouldn’t be much consolation if you drowned before anyone bothered to fish you out. And a lot of them apparently did.’
He stares at her. ‘ People actually did that shit? Seriously? ’
‘Seriously,’ she says, but half distractedly: an email has just pinged in on her phone. She scans it and a moment later turns to him, her face distraught. ‘It’s the initial PM report. They put a rush on it.’
She passes him the phone.
‘Jesus Christ,’ he says under his breath. ‘That’s all we fucking need.’
***
Importance: High
Date: Weds 24/07/2024, 13.55
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
CC: [email protected]
Subject: Case no LBS734/14G
Being aware of the urgency on this one I’m attaching an initial PM report. Bloodwork and toxicology are, of course, still pending, and we have also submitted samples for DNA testing. Establishing time of death with a cadaver of this kind is far from an exact science, but my guess would be in the region of six weeks.
Most of the attached is self-explanatory, but in my view the stand-out points are:
· The metal item found wedged in the mouth. It appears to be a common or garden shelf bracket such as you could buy at any B the grass round the station has a yellowish tinge already. The weather is in a brown funk.
He sits back, the chair rocking. ‘So what next? Given we now know it’s not Ellie Harben. Is it too much to hope you might actually have some sort of plan?’
‘Well, the only upside of all the press coverage is the possibility of someone coming forward. And if we get an ID –’
‘No likely matches in MissPers? Not even with the tattoo?’
‘I’m afraid not, sir. And the state of the body is such that we clearly won’t be able to issue any sort of photo.’
He gives a smile so dry it’s a fire risk. ‘Absolutely not. Can’t have the pensioners puking in their porridge.’
He picks up his pen and starts playing with it. It’s never a good sign. ‘Let’s try for TV,’ he says eventually. ‘That’ll put the wind up proceedings. Give us the chance to reassert some common sense, if nothing else.’
Her heart sinks. She knows where this is probably going. And it’s not just common sense that’s going to be asserted.
‘Get on to BBC Points West . Joyce can liaise on my availability. Always happy to help, Marce. As you know. Always happy to help.’
***
Adam Fawley 25 July 2024 07.45
It’s my turn to do Lily’s breakfast, and she’s being particularly dithery today so I’m somewhat distracted.
‘No, sweetheart, you can’t have pancakes because they’re too messy. But there’s Coco Pops and there’s egg and soldiers –’
‘No,’ says Alex, staring at the TV. ‘We ran out of eggs. I did that soufflé, remember.’
‘OK, so just Coco Pops, then.’ I smile encouragingly at Lily. ‘You love Coco Pops.’
She’s looking at me, big-eyed, very unconvinced. I decide to seize the initiative and pour cereal and milk into her Winnie-the-Pooh bowl. There’s a dicey moment before she picks up the spoon, but after that I’m home and dry. Chalk that one up as a win.
‘Isn’t that the chap you met?’
I turn to Alex and focus for the first time on what she was saying. And she’s right, I do recognize the man on the screen. It’s Detective Superintendent Lawrence Kearney of South Mercia Police. I might not have got the name without the caption, but the face, definitely. He’s put on some pounds since we worked the Camilla Rowan case but that’s – what? – six years now? And then I realize I’m holding my gut in and it’s just as well Alex is still staring at the screen. The sound’s turned low but I can make out ‘members of the public’ and ‘information’.
‘They found a shallow grave with some poor woman in it,’ says Alex, nursing her tea mug against her chest. ‘They don’t know who she is, and no one’s reported her missing.’
‘How long’s she been in there, did they say?’
‘Just a few weeks, I think. Not long anyway.’
I look up to see a camera panning over woodland. Close-packed trees, looming shadows. Even in summer sunlight it looks chilly, somehow. A lonely place to be found, especially if no one’s even looking for you.
Alex sighs. ‘Another story we’ll probably never know the ending of.’
***
Importance: High
Date: Thu 25/07/2024, 9.06
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Case no LBS734/14G – DNA results, rush
These just in from the lab. No DNA on the earring I’m afraid, but even a small amount of rain could have washed it off. As for the victim, she’s not in the National Database or the Missing Persons DNA Database, so she doesn’t have a criminal record and hasn’t been reported missing, though that probably doesn’t narrow your field all that much.
The same can’t be said, however, for the hair found in the duct tape.
BM
Attached
Missing Person Match Report
Report Generated on:
24/7/2024
Doc Ref:
IAM/130441
Report Generated by:
Laura Graveling
Issue:
V8.0
The DNA-17 profile obtained from the recovered hair (Sample 1) was searched on the Missing Persons Database with a positive result (Sample 2).
Sample 1
Sample 2
Sample ID: EG2508/18J
Sample ID: 180887JJG
Locus
Index
Genotype
Genotype
vWA
2.565
1517
1517
TH01
6.389
99.3
99.3
D8S1179
35.984
1316
1316
FGA
3.951
2324
2324
D21S11
9.236
2932.2
2932.2
D18S51
1.002
1214
1214
D2S1338
13.419
1719
1719
D16S539
1.244
14
14
D19S433
7.807
1415
1415
D3S1358
1.785
1416
1416
D1S1656
3.873
1118.3
1118.3
D2S441
1.996
812
812
D10S1248
3.971
15
15
D12S391
2.550
1823
1823
D22S1045
2.141
1114
1114
SE33
3.792
28.229.2
28.229.2
Amelogenin
N/A
XY
XY
Interpretation
The crime scene DNA profile obtained from exhibit DER/20 (Sample 1) relating to case reference LBS734/14G has generated a match to a DNA profile held on the Missing Persons DNA Database (Sample 2) presumed deceased – loaded under case reference 372844/DM.
The probability of the DNA profiles of two unrelated individuals matching is on average less than 1 in 1 billion (1,000,000,000).
I certify that these results are an accurate and true interpretation of the raw data obtained from the samples stated above. The results contained in this report have been obtained in accordance with the Forensic Science Regulator’s Code of Practice (version 1, dated March 2023) following an approved and validated scientific method as documented in our ISO/IEC 17025:2017 Schedule of Accreditation.
Lead Scientist:
***