They both ducked their heads as a fresh squall of snow blew into their faces.
‘What we don’t know is what happened out here on Siberia Belt. Why did Harvey Ellis die? Obvious scenario: he loses his nerve, one of the other members of the conspiracy kills him. So — who was the backstop? The kid in the Mondeo? Sebastian Draper. But he goes out and steals a car first? I know he’s going to Oxford but he can’t be that stupid. But is there another credible suspect? I can’t see it. Shreeves — in the security van. I guess it’s possible. Was that why he was so keen to start a new life somewhere else?’
Shaw led the way forward to the lit SOC tent. ‘Let’s see what’s keeping Tom’s boys out in the cold.’
‘Ah,’ he said, straightening his back. Around his neck hung several hundred pounds’ worth of binoculars. Shaw guessed he’d been planning a quiet hour after the final vehicle had been towed off Siberia Belt, scanning the marshes and beach for waders. ‘I’m glad you’re here, Peter — George. I’m afraid this isn’t going to make things any easier.’ He smiled, but they didn’t smile back.
‘This is the spot where our friend in the security van, God rest his soul, was parked on Monday night.’
Hadden knelt and threw a switch on a light gun held in a tripod before killing the overhead halogen bulb. The light was infra?red, and the effect made Valentine’s eyes swim out of focus. Shaw saw a liquid stain on the ground, glowing faintly like his daughter’s Halloween mask.
‘Luminol?’ asked Shaw.
‘Yup. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you what that means. Blood — might not be human of course — but blood. And lots of it; it’s soaked in — so several pints. Just the right amount.’
Shaw hugged himself in the cold, relieved at last to find an answer to part of the puzzle. This must be where Harvey Ellis had begun to bleed to death, before his body
‘Lucky find, actually,’ admitted Hadden. ‘One of the uniformed PCs was told to do a quick fingertip along the line once we’d cleared the bank.’ Hadden held his fingers up. ‘Red smudges.’ Hadden crouched, getting his face as close to the earth as possible. ‘And there’s something else.’
Shaw mimicked his position, looking across the brightly lit patch where the blood had soaked in. ‘Footprint?’
‘Yup. Deep — given it’s frozen earth. Three centimetres. Just one — we can’t find anything like it anywhere else on the bank.’
‘One footprint — in the blood?’ asked Valentine.
‘Yes. A boot, actually. Steel toecap. We’ve got a cast — here…’ He rummaged in the holdall and produced a lump of plaster with the imprint of the boot. ‘This helps,’ said Hadden, tapping the heel, which held the imprint of a fern, like a stencil.
‘Odd,’ said Shaw.
‘Yes. Reckon it’s a burn mark. Perhaps he stepped into the edge of a bonfire when the fern was burning and it’s left its outline. Anyway, distinctive, that’s the main thing. Good as a fingerprint.’
He slid the cast carefully back in the bag. ‘It’s not the victim’s boot, by the way — that’s a visual assessment but it isn’t going to change in the lab.’
‘Why just one footprint?’ asked Shaw.
‘Well — blood’s warm, hot when fresh. So three pints of it — perhaps more — would melt the frost out of the earth. So the foot sank in here — but not anywhere else,
‘Which means the footprint was in the blood, not the other way round?’
‘Could be,’ said Hadden, closing his eyes. ‘Yeah — it’s a sound scenario. I’d work with it.’
‘So…’
‘So… we’ve got all the shoes from Monday night. We’ll see if we can track down a match. But if you’re looking for the place where Harvey Ellis began to bleed to death then this is it. There are no scatter marks in the cab — no blood particles at all as far as we can tell. Blow like that, blood would shoot… see?’ He crouched again. The glowing puddle of blood was shapeless except for a single plume, like a wisp of pampas grass, which shot forward in an elegant curve.
‘The fact the blood splatter is a parabola helps. I’d say he was stabbed in the eye, then toppled sideways, that’s why you get the pattern.’
Valentine nodded, seeing it happen, feeling the familiar nausea in his stomach.
‘Another puzzle,’ said Hadden. ‘There’s no blood trails or drag?marks. I’d say he was lifted or rolled into something here — tarpaulin, plastic sheeting, God knows, and then taken to the pick?up. Like I said, the earth was frozen, so maybe that’s why there’s so little evidence on the ground. That’s all a working hypo — so don’t quote me.’
‘Could the blood have dripped through from the van above?’ asked Valentine.
Hadden shook his head but said: ‘I’ll check it out for the record, but no way — it’s a sold?on Securicor van, it’s
Shaw held the conundrum, unsolved, in his head. ‘So the victim was found in the driving seat of his truck — thirty feet away from the spot where he virtually bled to death. Nearly three hours before he was found dead he’d driven his own van over the same spot. That’s not possible.’
‘I just do the science, Peter,’ said Hadden, flicking off the light. ‘I need to finish up.’ They took the hint, backing out into the snow.
‘One step forward, two steps back,’ said Shaw. ‘What’s the step forward?’ asked Valentine.
‘We know how the dog got Ellis’s blood on its snout.’
Back at St James’s Shaw ran up the steps while Valentine waited for the antiquated lift. He pushed open the fire door and saw ahead the long corridor which led to the murder incident room. A woman, with a pail and mop, had stopped in mid?distance, hands on hips. Suddenly a reinforced glass door thudded open and DC Twine was running towards him. Policemen never run, that’s standard basic training, unless it’s to save life.
Twine skidded to a halt on the damp lino.
‘Officer down,’ he said. ‘Out at the hostel — it’s Fiona.’
Twine drove Shaw, commandeering a squad car on the forecourt, Valentine’s Mazda in the rear?view. The rush?hour streets were wet and splashed with the jagged colours of the town: traffic lights, headlamps, bright shopfronts, pedestrians turned away from the sea wind. The workers’ hostel in the North End was tucked away in the warren of terraced streets that once was home to the town’s fishing community. It had been the district’s Co? op, and the distinctive red?brick facade was still decorated with vine leaves and an inlaid picture in a pale sandstone of a dairymaid carrying a yoke through a meadow. Graffiti covered it now: a curled indecipherable moniker in soot?black.
An ambulance, sirens screaming, tagged on to the
They brought Fiona Campbell out on a stretcher. Even under the amber street light Shaw could see she was as pale as a Goth. A paramedic was pressing a bandage to a wound at her shoulder, a single knife?cut from the clavicle up towards the neck, the flesh hanging open to reveal a white, chipped bone. She was doused in blood on her left side, her own hand a sticky glove of arterial red.
Shaw placed a hand on her forehead. Fear had made her eyes unnaturally bright. ‘You can take tomorrow morning off if it helps,’ he said. As he spoke blood oozed to fill the trench of the wound. Valentine hung back. The paramedics slid her into the back of the ambulance, set up a drip and pulled off in a cloud of sirens.
‘She had a uniformed PC with her apparently,’ said Valentine, stepping forward, his face a colourless mask.
‘Where?’
‘In the building.’
The shop area of the old Co?op had been left as a storeroom: tea crates, furniture, the old marble counter stacked with loo rolls, catering packs of detergent and light bulbs. A uniformed PC sat on a stool, holding a plastic bottle of water. Even from ten feet away Shaw could see he was shaking.
Valentine spoke to Shaw’s ear. ‘PC Darren Cole. It’s his beat — local community liaison officer. First tour of duty. He’s not having a good day.’
