“There were
“Not necessarily two attackers,” said Nowak. “Someone could have had consensual sex with her, in accordance with the theory that she went into The Maze to meet someone.”
“Then someone else killed her?” said Templeton.
“Possibly.”
“She went into The Maze to relieve herself,” said Winsome. “And she wasn’t a slut.”
“I’m not suggesting that she was,” said Nowak, looking taken aback. “Just that the results are inconsistent. We know that someone had sex with Hayley using a condom because we found traces of a lu-bricant used on a common brand, but we also found traces of semen on her thigh and on two of the adjacent leather remnants. Those are the facts. It’s not up to me to speculate, but I’d ask why a killer clever enough to clean up the body to some extent would miss the semen, unless it happened at a different time, or perhaps was left by someone else. There was one slight inconsistency.”
“Yes?” said Gervaise.
“The seminal f luid wasn’t quite as dry as it should have been given the time of death.”
“As I’ve explained many times,” said Dr. Wallace with a definite hint of defensiveness in her tone, “time of death is always, at best, a rough estimate.”
“That’s what I thought,” said Nowak.
“What time, then?” asked Banks.
Nowak looked at Dr. Wallace before answering. “I don’t see any 1 6 0
P E T E R R O B I N S O N
reason to argue with the original estimate, between midnight and two a.m.,” he said. “There could be other reasons for the inconsistency. I’ll work on it.”
“Very well,” said Gervaise.
“I noted in my postmortem that Hayley might have tried to fight off her attacker,” said Dr. Wallace. “Did you find any tissue in the samples we scraped from under her fingernails?”
“Alas, no,” said Nowak. “As you mentioned in your report, the nails were too short to actually scratch anyone. All we got were a few common cotton fibers.”
“Any luck identifying them?” Gervaise asked.
Nowak shook his head. “We’re still working with them, but they could come from any number of brands. Not only that,” Nowak went on, “but she could have picked them up at any time during the evening. Remember, she was with a large group of people, and the odds were that some or all of them touched or brushed against the others at some point.”
“Hair?” Banks asked.
“Only hers and Joseph Randall’s.”
“So our killer wore a balaclava, or he’s bald,” said Hatchley.
Nobody laughed.
“There’s evidence the killer cleaned her up,” said Dr. Wallace.
“Washed her pubic area.”
“Except he missed that semen,” Banks said.
“It looks that way,” said Nowak. “Or that happened
“Possible,” Dr. Wallace agreed.
“Fingerprints?” asked Banks.
“None. Sorry.”
“I thought you lot could perform miracles these days,” said Banks, seeing everything slipping away.
Nowak looked at Dr. Wallace. “Sometimes it seems that way, but we’re only as good as the evidence we collect.”
“Any luck with the known offenders?” Gervaise asked.
“Nothing,” said Banks. “They’ve all been interviewed, and they all have alibis. We’re still working on it.”
F R I E N D O F T H E D E V I L
1 6 1
Gervaise turned to Nowak again. “Have we missed something?”
“I don’t think so,” said Nowak. “The SOCOs went over that place as thoroughly as any scene they’ve ever handled. One other thing we found was traces of the girl’s urine on the ground outside the storage room, which is consistent with her friends’ statement that she went down Taylor’s Yard to relieve herself. We also found traces of vomit which we matched to her stomach contents, so it looks very much as if she was sick, too. The team also went through the neighboring buildings. Most of them are empty or used for storage of some kind. Nothing there.”
“So are we dealing with a particularly clever killer?” Templeton asked.
“Not necessarily,” said Nowak. “You’ve got to wonder how smart a killer is when he cleans up a body but misses a drop of semen. Maybe he’s just lucky. But let’s be honest: Anyone who sets out to commit a crime today
